Banana Rum Caramel Coconut Pie and Salted Rum Caramel Sauce equals Yummy!

Salted Rum Caramel Sauce is in the jar at top right of photo

This is a beautiful book with tempting photos. The recipes tempt you. My husband was craving banana pie, so I checked this book out of the library. After making and tasting the Salted Rum Caramel Sauce, and the Rum Pastry Cream, I had a feeling it was a keeper. My husband drooled over this, and couldn’t stop eating it. Normally, he does not care for coconut, but he did not mention it while he inhaled this pie. I ordered the book online to have on my shelf as there are a few apple and berry pie recipes I want to try, along with the crust. I give this book 4 stars for now, because the pastry cream was more of pudding rather than pie. That could be my fault, so I’m going to make it again, if I get a better pie filling result, I will change this rating to 5 stars. Of course, if the apple recipes turn out well, then that will change the stars to 5 as well. My husband said he did not mind the pudding part as it was delicious. The Salted Rum Caramel sauce will be used on apple slices today because it is delicious.

from the book: Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life

Beet Borsch

There are many recipes I am curious about from this cookbook. Jim and I have never had Borsch. I juice beets for us on a weekly schedule, so I keep beets in the refrigerator drawer. We were pleasantly surprised at the taste. I knew we would be ok with this recipe, because all the ingredients were items we liked. I will say, adding sour cream to this definitely takes it to another level of flavor. When I added the sour cream, I was reminded of the flavors of tomato soup. This made a lot, so I stored the leftover in the refrigerator in large mason jars. The second day, the flavor was even better. This was a fun dish, and we are glad we gave it a try. It’s hard to get a nice enough photo of a red soup dish (tomatoes and beets), and I don’t know how the online photos get the sour cream to float on top to make the photo more attractive/tasty looking. My photo barely shows the cream due to it sinking right away.

I am now looking at an Irish pork dish called Griskins. I have all the ingredients, and we will prepare it for a St. Patrick’s Day meal.

Spaghetti Squash with Vegetable Tomato sauce

I collect older cookbooks, as well as the spiral bound church cookbooks. I especially like the books with notes near the recipes. I like to keep a page in the beginning part of books of recipes to try, based on reviews online, as well as the recipes I have made with my notes next to them.  

I added a lot of leftovers from the fridge. Just chop up whatever you have, follow the recipe loosely, and have fun with it. I added parmesan cheese and slivered almonds to the top, once I plated this. This is a delicious and very filling dish. We will definitely have this again.

Lemony Snowball Cookies

Now and then, I will browse a vintage cookbook, find a treat to bake to ‘test’ for the holiday trays. This recipe mentioned a variety of different flavors to try with the main recipe. I decided the lemon sounded like a fun add on to the trays of cookies. I like to add a variety of flavors, and using lemon drops caught my eye. These are yummy, and now have a couple notes next to the recipe for my holiday baking.

If you decide to make these, the dough is deceiving. You will think there is no way you can make cookie balls out of these grains of dough. You can. The heat of your hands causes these cookies to shape the way you need them to. I froze a batch of these, because I like to pull them out of the freezer during Easter and see how they taste. That gives me an idea of when to start baking, and freezing these before Christmas.

This recipe is from the Betty Crocker’s best Christmas Cookbook, published in 1999.

I have added a note page to the front inside of this book listing all the recipes I want to create. There are many.

Chopped Italian Sliders

not my image; recipe site
https://whatsmomcookin.com/chopped-italian-sliders/

the first image is not mine, it comes directly from the site with the recipe

Jim was going to give the Hawaiian rolls to the birds, because it is a lot from SAMS, and he couldn’t eat them all in a decent time frame.

I found this recipe online, (click on above photo to go to the recipe)

I made it with the homemade red wine vinegar dressing that she mentions in the notes, after the recipe, if you do not have submarine dressing.

These were delicious!  I used the lettuce combo as a salad, and added the chopped meat to my salad as well.

Jim said he could not stop eating these little sandwiches. He said they are delicious and what a fun idea to do with these when you have a quantity of these rolls.

Update: only 3 left in that whole package. He said he’d better stop

Sprouts with mustard seeds

Classic Home Cooking 1995 Dorling Kindersley Cookbook. This is a big cookbook (over 500 pages), oversized, and heavy. There are colorful photos on every page. I decided to try a few of the veggie recipes, because the photos in the center of the book tempted me. Now, I will say, these recipes were bland, but they were good starting points. I added my own seasonings, and garlic, and scallions. I am sharing two recipes here, because I forgot to take a photo of the Summer Peas and Beans dish, so I am using the photo in the book. These recipes are on page 357 of this massive book. My husband ate 2 bowlfuls of these dishes in the past two days, and added the recipe to his bowl of soup that evening. I also like to top my veggies with slivered almonds or crushed walnuts. My husband likes this extra touch

Tomorrow, I will be making the Gingers Parsnips, and on Friday, I’ll be making the Glazed Carrots and Turnips, because I have these items in my refrigerator.

Which reminds me, quite a few of these recipes got my attention, because they are items I already have on hand.

Sprouts with Mustard Seeds
the handwritten notes are not from me
Summer Peas & Beans

Espresso Stovetop

I bought this during the Black Friday event at a great price. I didn’t need another coffee gadget, but at that price, I had to try it. I’m glad I did!

I watched a couple of the videos from customers while waiting for the quick delivery. My first time operating this, and it was a win.

I found with the coffee grounds (I use black rifle espresso) that this tends to be smoother (no grounds finding their way in to the finished product), when I use a paper filter from mycap which I buy for my Tassimo – they fit perfectly.

If you want to see a video of my first day using this , I shared it as part of my review on Amazon. Below are a few photos to show my first attempt at espresso

Easy and quick to operate; delicious espresso

Espresso Stovetop Coffeemaker

Sip on a Dreamy Coconut Milk Latte

This is delicious and very easy to create. I accidentally stumbled on to this website, I had all the ingredients, and decided to give this a try. I used espresso, and for the brown sugar I used Swerve. Just a few ingredients, and this was quick to create. It is hard to just have one.

Link to recipe: Coconut Milk Latte

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Delicious! Just the right amount of spices. We definitely taste the pumpkin. We live in Indiana, and I had to bake for 15 minutes for the perfect chewy on the inside, crunchy on the outside, and nice light brown color.

This is a keeper and I’ll be making again. It’s very easy to create.

The second photo shows the crispy outer layer

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles link

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